Death's Other Kingdom
by Salute the Mockingjay
Summary: 'This is the dead land. This is cactus land. Here the stone images are raised, here they receive the supplication of a dead man's hand under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this, in death's other kingdom, waking alone at the hour when we are trembling with tenderness? Lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone.' WARNING. Incest. Attempted rape. Violence. Smut.


_**The eyes are not here**_

_**There are no eyes here**_

_**In this valley of dying stars**_

_**In this hollow valley**_

_**This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms…**_

_**This is how the world ends**_

_**Not with a bang**_

_**But a whimper**_

_~The Hollow Men, _**T.S. Eliot**

* * *

_Chapter Songs_

_Aurora, by Hans Zimmer_

_American Beauty, by Thomas Newman_

_Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), Henryk Gorecki_

* * *

Stars are diamonds against the velvet of an ebony sky, the moon a slowly falling, glowing pearl. The world is painted in black and white. Night places Nature's vibrant colors into the arms of Day, and lulls the whispering pines, the rustling grasses, and the bubbling creeks to sleep.

Birds nestled together, high in the branches, do not hear the last sigh. Snakes, coiled up beneath a blanket of damp, fall leaves, do not see the last breath evaporate into the chilly air. The willows weep for a death they have no knowledge of. Dew drops fall from drooping blades of grass like tears, and the soil welcomes the water mere hours before it will open its arms again and welcome icy and pale skin. It will welcome tangled, flowing auburn hair. It will welcome she whose breath has flown into the sky and caught in the wind.

There is no one to hear her last breath. No one to speak words of love one last time. As she passes, those around her sleep blissfully, ignorantly on.

Stars are diamonds against the velvet of an ebony sky, the moon a slowly falling, glowing pearl. The world is painted in black and white. Night places Nature's vibrant colors into the arms of Day, and lulls the whispering pines, the rustling grasses, and the bubbling creeks to sleep.

* * *

The sun has frozen. The sun has frozen and the wind is a knife, and it cuts through my skin and settles deep in my bones and my veins and the wind blows ice to cover my listlessly beating heart. Some deep instinct inside of me pulls on my arms, willing them to wrap tightly around my body and keep my core warm, but I remain motionless.

I am so cold.

My mother is even colder.

I bend over her statuesque body and kiss her forehead one last time, careful not to let the rebellious tear inching its way down my cheek drop onto her porcelain skin. As I stand back up, the tear slides down my neck and tucks itself into the collar of my dress, to be absorbed by the cotton or my skin, I don't know and I don't care. I tug my veil back down over my face and step away from the casket, away from the smell of death that lingers in the air despite the cloying scent of the white roses heaped atop the wood and interwoven in my mother's scarlet hair.

My stomach twists, but I cannot look away. This is a nightmare. This is a horror, this is the scene of a crime—so, so terrible, that despite the tension and pain in every nerve of my body, I must keep watching.

I close my eyes for a moment and sway back on my heels, willing the acid in my throat to climb back down into my stomach.

"_Ave atque vale, _Jocelyn Fairchild Morgenstern. _Ave atque vale_."

My eyes fly open just in time to catch one last glimpse of my mother before she is shut and locked away, prepared to be tucked underneath the ground where no one will be able to reach her ever again.

As the earth swallows my mother's body, I feel nothing. I feel hollow, melancholy, numb. Empty. A glance at my brother's and father's faces reveal the same emotions I'm sure are reflected on my own features. Though, when the first shovel of dirt cascades onto the lid of my mother's casket, I see a flash of pure agony disturb my father's perfectly controlled features.

I want to cry. I wish I could cry, but I feel nothing. My mother's silent, unexpected death is too fresh, too shocking, too nightmarish. I'm still half convinced that the next time I blink, I'll find myself lying in bed, staring up at my ceiling, my chest heaving. My mother will come into my chambers and kiss my forehead and caress my cheek. She will run her lithe fingers through my hair, despite its unruliness, and she will whisper words of comfort and calming to me, until she is sure my heart has settled back into its normative rhythm, and my skin has returned to its usual, dry warmth.

But I know that will not happen. Deep inside, I know, for certain, she is gone. I will never see her again.

Still, I blink. Slowly. I squeeze my eyes shut and my body tenses and I pray and pray and pray to the sky that when I open them, I'll wake from this horrific nightmare. But when I open them, I see the gravediggers smoothing the dirt over my mother's grave, and I see my brother, Jonathan, kneeling next to her marble headstone and laying a bouquet of white roses.

I swallow my tears.

_For death and mourning, the color's white._

* * *

"Clarissa…"

I ignore my brother's worried voice and keep my cheek laid on my drawn up knees. My black dyed nightgown bunches up around my thighs, and my legs are exposed, but I can't find it in me to care. A horde of grown men could storm into my chambers and I don't think I would even flinch.

Jonathan sits next to me on the windowsill, watching me carefully with his raven eyes. "Clarissa…You haven't said a word since last night, before we slept. Since you told Mother goodnight." He reaches forward and takes my right hand in his, cupping it between his palms. "_Say _something."

He's wrong. When our servants started shouting that my mother had passed during the night, without anyone's knowledge, I was the first of my family to run to my mother's chambers. Surely, the servants had gone mad. Perhaps they'd had a bit too much to drink the night before. Perhaps they'd had nightmares and their nightmares had bled into their waking lives. But when I knelt before my mother's bedside and saw the ash her skin had become, and wrapped my own fingers around her frozen ones, the news of my mother's death solidified.

I managed to croak one word. "Mommy."

No one but me heard that word. My brother didn't. My father didn't. The servants were too busy rousing the poor, widowed man.

"Clarissa, for the love of the Angel…"

My brother's voice pulls me out of my thoughts and I finally look at him.

"She's gone," I manage to whisper, my heart thumping painfully in my chest. "She's really gone, Jonathan…She's gone forever."

Jonathan's expression softens, and I can see my own pain mirrored in his eyes. He wraps his fingers gently around my wrist and pulls me into his arms, holding me tightly and securely.

And just like that, the pain that was absent during my mother's funeral earlier that afternoon, slams into my chest, and my body is wracked with sobs. I cry into my brother's shirt, and though he doesn't shed a single tear, I can feel his shoulders and his chest shaking, and I can feel his arms tremble even as they support me.

Death's sickle prods at my heart, forceful enough to leave a bleeding gash, but not intentional enough to leave me dead. I will bleed until my heart stitches itself back up, but I will not die. I will not have relief from this waking nightmare, from this valley of dying stars. I will not have rest. I will not ascend into the stars and I will not spread my wings and soar into the sky, as my mother has. No. My blood will water the stones of this castle, will stain the sheets of my bed and poison my food. And I will bleed until I have no blood left to give.

Jonathan presses his lips to my forehead once my sobs have turned to shuddering hiccups, and pulls away from me to look into my eyes. "Remember one thing," he says, his voice steady in spite of the pain and anger swelling in his eyes. "Mother wouldn't have wanted you to cry. You're a strong girl. You're a resilient girl. And you still owe it to Mother to be everything she would have wanted you to be and more."

This, I know. But my heart has turned to stone, my mind to ice, and my eyes to fire.

"Where is Father?" I ask, fighting through the hoarseness of my voice.

"He left," Jonathan says.

My eyes widen in alarm and my brother sees this.

"Not permanently," he amends. "He was called away soon after Mother's funeral, by the delegate of the South Border. It seems Mother's—" He stops abruptly and swallows with difficulty. "Mother's passing…It wasn't the only death last night."

I don't move. I don't flinch. I don't blink. I just wait.

Jonathan takes my silence as a signal to continue. "Michael Wayland died last night," he says quietly. "Silently. His adopted son discovered him early in the morning, before going to the stables to train. Father wants to know if there is a connection between the deaths."

I lean back into my brother's chest, and he wraps his arms tightly around my trembling body. My eyes drift up to the moon and the stars.

_We are the hollow men_

_We are the stuffed men_

_Leaning together_

_Headpiece filled with straw._

* * *

_**On the use of The Hollow Men: The stanza used at the beginning of the chapter is from the end of the poem, by Eliot. The poem itself is about a group of men who died—men who lived lukewarm lives, who did nothing horrible enough to earn them a spot in Hell, and who did not follow the Law of the Lord closely enough to earn a spot in Heaven. Therefore, they are trapped in a valley, their lives completely meaningless, dry, and empty. If they utter the Lord's Prayer, they will be freed, sent to Heaven. But they cannot bring themselves to do it, because they are hollow and stubborn, and therefore, they are trapped in the valley for eternity.**_

_**In this particular chapter, the stanza at the top is used to emphasize how Jocelyn dies in this instance—no one sees her die, and she dies 'not with a bang, but a whimper.' In other words, she dies quietly and uneventfully. In the Shadowhunter universe, it is kind of expected that one should die in a loud way—in a fight, in a hunt, in disease. This is much like the conception of how the world as we know it will end—with an apocalypse. What Eliot is saying is that the world will die because of hollow men—it will die because people will live lukewarm lives, and it will be snuffed out like the small flame of a candle, or a sigh, instead of a shout or the blast of a firework.**_

_**At the end, when Clary thinks of the very beginning of the poem, she's likening herself and Jonathan to the Hollow Men. Up until this point, Clary and Jonathan have lived lukewarm lives. They sit in the lap of luxury, and they have done nothing horrendous or wonderful. They simply exist. But, as we will see soon, they will rapidly lose their status as hollow men, whether for better or for worse.**_

_**Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted either this Saturday or Sunday.**_


End file.
